A Study Of CBI’s Application To Classical Chinese Teaching

Teaching Classical Chinese to foreign students is quite different from teaching Chinese students Classical Chinese. The teaching target is not to acquire them to read articles written by Classical Chinese or to speak in Classical Chinese any more, but to improve students’reading and speaking skills by learning basic knowledge about Classical Chinese. Content-based instruction is an integrative approach with dual focus on language skills and content mastery which agrees that language is learned more effectively as a tool of subject matter study. It features in the employment of subject content, authentic language use and the focus on learners’real communication needs. Therefore, applying content-based instruction to Classical Chinese Teaching can help students acquire basic knowledge about Classical Chinese and improve their abilities of using Modern Chinese.This thesis is based on my experience of teaching Classical Chinese to students from Copenhagen University which tries to prove that content-based instruction can work well in Classical Chinese teaching. And a specific Classical Chinese teaching design is presented in the thesis, showing how CBI works in teaching Classical Chinese.